CHAPTER XII

REMOVAL OF THE FLAT HEADS TO THE JOCKO. FOUNDERS OF THE MISSION. SOME NOTED FLAT HEADS--PAUL, VICTOR, AGNES, INSULA, ALEE, CHARLOT. CHARLOT AND THE GARFIELD TREATY.

Crowded out by the whites, the Flat Heads had been gradually leaving the Bitter Root Valley, moving on to the reservation which the Government set aside for them and their confederated tribes, the Pend d'Oreilles, Kalispel, and Kootenays. The last of the Flat Heads to give up their cherished homes were Chief Charlot and his adherents, who finally consented to join their brethren on the Jocko.

Their arrival is feelingly described by Mrs. P. Ronan in a letter to her sons in attendance at Gonzaga College, Spokane, Wash., and published in the Spokane Review. We quote the following:

October 17, 1891, witnessed a unique and to some minds pathetic spectacle. Charlot and his band of Indians, numbering less than two hundred souls, marched into their future home, the Jocko Reservation. Their coming had been heralded, and many of the reservation Indians had gathered at the Agency to give them welcome. When within a mile of the Agency church, the advancing Indians spread out, forming a broad column. The young men kept constantly discharging their firearms, while a few of the number, mounted on fleet ponies, arrayed in phantastic Indian paraphernalia, with long blankets partially draping the forms of the warriors and steeds, rode back and forth in front of the advancing caravan, shouting and firing their guns until they neared the church, where a large banner of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Mary was erected on a tall pole. Ner the sacred emblem stood a valiant soldier of Jesus Christ, the Rev. Ph. Canestrelli, S. J. With outstretched hands the good priest blessed and welcomed the forlorn-looking pilgrims. Chief Charlot's countenance retained its habitual expression of stubborn pride and gloom, as he advanced on foot, shaking hands with all who had come to greet him. After the general handshaking was over, all assembled

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in the Agency chapel for the Benediction of the Most Holy Sacrament. The O salutaris and Tantum Ergo, chanted by those untutored children of the forest, told better than any other words could of the patient teachings of the Jesuit Fathers. Every word of the beautiful Latin verses sounded as distinct as if coming from cultivated voices. If the poor creatures reflected on the meaning of the words:

They must have felt that the touching sentiment truly expressed the feeling of their hearts. After the Benediction the good and learned Father Canestrelli, who has spent many years laboring among the Indians, striving, to enlighten their minds and purify their hearts, addressed them in their own language, the Kalispel. The good words seemed to console and comfort them, if the peaceful expression of their countenances indexed aright their minds.

This event concludes the narrative of St. Mary's, as an Indian Mission, the fiftieth anniversary of its foundation coinciding with the closing year of its existence. But though St. Mary's is no longer an Indian mission, precious memories of virtuous and noble deeds, tinged with a halo of romance, will ever cling to its name and hallow that favored spot.

Let us add a word about its founders and some of the more noted Flat Heads.

Father De Smet's extraordinary zeal and labors among the Indians throughout the whole Northwest are too universally known to call for any recounting. To t his day there is not a tribe of Indians in the rocky Mountains that does not point with a feeling of pride to some of its members who received the waters of regeneration at the hands of "the great Black Robe," as they were wont to all him. He departed this life at St. Louis, Mo., May 23, 1873, and his remains rest on the banks of the Mississippi. His monument, s a pioneer and apostle of Christianity and civilization in the Rocky Mountains, is in his native city, in far-off Belgium; while here among us a station along the Northern Pacific Railway bears his name. But it is fair to hope that Montana, the part of the Northwest which is, perhaps, the most inGenealogybug2005 ted to him, will one day out of practical gratitude create a worthy remembrance of her great benefactor.

Father G. Mengarini, co-founder of St. Mary's with Father De Smet, labored ten years among the Flat Hears, and mastered

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the rich, but difficult Selish or Kalispel language so thoroughly that the Indians could not tell him from one of themselves by his speech. It is said, in fact, that time and again he played on them the innocent trick of passing himself as one of their tribe without being detected. He composed a Selish Grammar, which was published in New York in 1861, as one of a series of Indian studies edited by the distinguished historian, J. Gilmary Shea.

Father Mengarini prepared also an Indian-English Dictionary of the same language, to which due reference will be made when speaking of St. Ignatius, where it was printed. In 1850 he was called by the superiors to California, and though so far removed from the scene of his first missionary labors, his heart seems to have remained with the tribe which he helped to Christianize, and to whom he yearned to return. He died September 23, 1886, at Santa Clara.

Father N. Point, the other co-founder of the Flat Head Mission, besides the qualities of an excellent missionary, had considerable talent and skill as an artist, and he used this gift to gain the heart and good will of the Indians by painting their portraits. In 1846 he visited the country of the Blackfeet, where he spent the winter, as will be related more in detail in the history of St. Peter's Mission. Unfortunately for the Indians, he was recalled by his Superiors to the Missions of Upper Canada, where he continued to labor with zeal and success for several years. He went to his rest as Quebec, July 4, 1868.

Of the Coadjutor Brothers, co-founders of St. Mary's, we shall mention only two, Wm. Claessens and Joseph Specht, whose missionary lives were spent mostly in Montana. They were both expert mechanics, the former a carpenter, the latter a blacksmith, and their manual services in behalf of this and other Missions have been invaluable. Brother Joseph Specht died at St. Ignatius, June 17, 1884, full of yeas and merits. Of the seventy-six years of his life, forty were spent on the Indian Missions in the Rocky Mountains.

Brother Wm. Claessens is still living and resides at Santa Clara, Cal., where he was called by the Superiors some two years

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ago, to rest from his long, laborious life on these Missions. The plucky veteran is now in his eightieth year. He corresponds occasionally with the writer, and the one wish expressed in all his letters is that he may be allowed to return and end his days where he spent the most of his life, that is, on the Indian Missions in Montana.

Among the noted members of the Selish or Flat Head nation, the first one to be mentioned is Paul, or Big Face, his name in Indian, on account of his somewhat elongated visage, but who, says Father De Smet, "might more nobly and more appropriately be named the Nestor of the Desert; for as well in years as in sagacity he has all the essentials of greatness."

He was left a helpless orphan by the death of his mother, and, according to the inhuman custom followed in such cases, he would have been buried wit her in the same grave, but for a good-hearted young woman who took pity on the poor child and offered to take care of him and bring him up as if he has been her own. God rewarded her humanity in that she saw her adopted son become distinguished above all his fellows by intelligence, gentleness and every good disposition, being brave, docile, unselfish, and inclined to piety; so much so that he became the head chief of the whole nation.

It was he who welcomed Father De Smet on his first visit to the Flat Heads, as we related in a former chapter, and addressed him on that, and other occasions, in word which were full of wisdom and practical common sense. He was the first of the tribe to be baptized, being at the time nearly eighty, and receiving the name of Paul.

On the day of his baptism he said to Father De Smet: "If, during my life, I have committed faults, they were those of ignorance; it appears to me, that I never did anything knowing it to be wrong." At the time of his first Communion, having been asked if he had not some faults to reproach himself with since ha had been baptized: "Faults!" he replied, with surprise" "how could I commit any, I whose duty it is to teach others how to do good?" Would that every educated Christian were always

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as upright and as conscientious as this untaught savage of the Rocky Mountains!

The next Flat Head deserving special mention if Victor, modified into Mitt'tó by the Indians. He was Paul's successor, and of him Father De Smet could write: "This good chief walks faithfully in the footsteps of his predecessor, which is no small praise."

A suavity and dignified simplicity of manners, together with bravery and courage, were combined in victor in no ordinary degree, and gained him the respect and confidence of the whole tribe, whose leader he was for nearly fifty years. toward the latter part of is long career he became well known also to the whites, who were now coming in large numbers into Montana, and whose good will went out to him from every mining camp.

He was baptized by Father De Smet who, even late in after years, as he tell us, would recall with the deepest emotion the happiness which Victor manifested on that solemn occasion. He was taken off in the summer of 1870 while n the hunt. Not only is people, but the whites also lamented his loss, Montana papers announcing and commenting upon his death as a public calamity. His remains rest at St. Mary's among his brethren gone before him.

On hearing of his death, Captain John Mullan, an old-time friend of the Flat Heads, sent to the tribe a letter of condolence, from which we quote the following:

Your friend, Captain Mullan, has learned with great sadness the loss which you have sustained in the death of your great and good chief, Victor. As the long-tried friend of the white man, Victor had no superior among the red men of America. Mild and gentle as a woman, and innocent of wrong as a child, he commanded his people for ner half a century. Your friend while residing among your people knew Victor well. He has eaten and slept and smoked at his campfires; traveled with him to the hunt; has seen him help the widow and the orphan of the tribe, and go in person on missions of peace to the Blackfeet, to the Crows. to the Sioux, and to the Bannocks, endeavoring to retain with them friendly relations. Brave in

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battle and generous in peace, he has set an example worthy of imitation to all Indian tribes.

This tribute to the memory of Victor, says Father De Smet, is highly deserved by the chief of the Flat Heads; "I am happy to subscribe to it fully and bear him testimony. I have been intimately acquainted with Victor for years in my visits to the Rocky Mountain Missions."

On one occasion Father De Smet in speaking to the Indians was telling them how wicked and impious men persecuted the church, and in many ways reviled the Holy Father, our Lord's Vicar on earth. At this, victor hastily rose, full of animation, and said: "Should our Great Father, the Great chief of the Black robes, be in danger--you speak on paper--invite him in our names to our mountains. We will raise his lodge in our midst; we will hunt for him and keep his lodge provided, and we will guard him against the approach of his enemies." This little incident, vouched for by Father De Smet, is enough to show victor's true character, his filial and religious affection, no less than the generosity and bravery of his heart.

The incident brought no little pleasure to Gregory XVI, who smiled on hearing it from Father De Smet, and sent to the flat Head chief and all his people the apostolic Benediction.

Victor's second wife was a woman of excellent parts, clever, industrious, and an example of true Christian piety to all the women of the tribe. Though there always appeared about her a little something of neatness not seen in any of the other women, still, in her poor Indian garb, from the blanket or shawl over her head down to her mocassined toes, she looked only a plain, simple squaw. Her manners, however, revealed her for the gifted woman she really was, dignified, sensible, tactful, and not only polite, but remarkably refined. "Lo! There goes the queen there goes the princess!" time and again fell on our ears, whispered y groups of your folk--and older ones, too--who would stop and look at Agnes admiringly when, all unconscious of being noticed, she happened to pass through town with her people, or when she visited the Sisters at Missoula or Helena.

Agnes survived Victor by several years, and while we often thought that either could have graced a royal throne, we feel

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confident that they have both attained to one. It was their happy lot to serve God loyally; and does not God make real sovereigns of His Faithful servants?"

"the Little Chief and Great Warrior," as he was called, owing to his bravery and small stature, is another Flat Head who is entitled to special mention; for he was a conspicuous example of the power of religion in developing the most amiable virtues in the fiercest savages.

According tot he testimony of the Fathers, Insulá united in his person great bravery with the gentlest manners and tender piety. He was known to friend and foe by the red feather he used to wear and his approach was enough to put to flight the prowling bands of Bannocks, Blackfeet and Crows that frequently infested the Flat Head country. He was also well known and esteemed by the whites as a man of sound judgment, strict integrity, and one of whose fidelity they could rely.

If our Flat Heads escaped being contaminated by heresy, it was due in great measure to his adroitness and firmness. He it was who, in the belief that they were the long-expected Black Robes, went to meet the Rev. Samuel Parker and Dr. Whitman at Green river, while the reverend gentlemen were on their way precisely to bring the Gospel to the Flat Heads. No sooner did Insulá discover that they were not Catholic missionaries then he gave them plainly to understand that his people did not want them, and bade them go bring their gospel to some other tribe.

"Our little chief," wrote Father Hoecken of Insulá, "preserved his first fervor of faith and devotion to his death, and one could hardly enter his wigwam in the morning, or in the evening without finding him with his Rosary in his hands absorbed in prayer."

With Michael Insulá might also be mentioned Atól, that is, Adolph; Ameló, or Ambrose; Phidel Teltellá, or the Thunder,

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who were all men of influence and character, and much respected by both their fellow-Indians and the whites.

The last war chief of the tribe was Alee, changed into Arlee by the whites, and he died at his ranch near the Agency, August 8, 1889. His death-bed was surrounded by his relatives, several of his Indian friends, and some whites, among the latter being the Agent, Major P. Ronan, with Mrs. Ronan, his wife; Dr. Dade, the Agency Physician, and some other attached to the Agency. The Sunday before he died, the old chief had been visited by the Ordinary, the Right Rev. J. B. Brondel; and all the rites of the Church were administered to him by the Father D'Aste, the Superior of the Mission.

Alee had been baptized in youth by Father De Smet, and though a Nez Percés by parentage, had lived most of his life among the Flat Heads, as one of the tribe. He was a man of rather difficult disposition, and retained to his last breath more than one forbidding trait of his Indian nature. His remains were laid to rest near the little church at the Agency, and the

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railway station, a short distance off, has been named Arlee, after him.

Alee had accepted the terms of the Garfield Treaty, of which we shall speak a little further on, and was, in consequence, appointed, by the Department, chief of those Flat Heads who, because of that unsavory treaty, had consented to move to the Jocko. But to the day of his death he was never spoken to, and still less recognized by Charlot. The Right Reverend Bishop O'Connor speaks as follows of his noted Indian: "Alee or Red Night, the name he went by in the tribe, a noble-looking man, wore a white Kossuth hat and a blue blanket, and an eagle's wing hung at his girdle. Obesity had taken all the grace from his figure, but I thought I had never seen a finer head or face than his. I could hardly take my eyes off him."

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adopting the manners of the white man is well know, and borders at times on the unreasonable. As an instance, but a short time ago, he intimated to the Fathers at the Mission and to the Agent that none of the boys of his band should ever attend school if they were to be shorn of their long, flowing hair. Now, good will toward the whites, with a no less hearty dislike of their ways and manners, appear almost contradictory in the same person. Yet, they are united in a marked degree in Charlot, and constitute a peculiar and puzzling trait of his character.

Whence the anomaly? The reader is welcome to any solution he may think best; but to our mind, the explanation is neither difficult not far to seek. Charlot is a sincere and practical Christian, and as such he knows well that he must be on friendly terms with all men, irrespective of race or color. Hence his friendliness toward the whites. But the ill-usage which he and his people have suffered for years at the hands of unscrupulous whites, Government officials included, has forced upon him the conviction that the ways of the white man are "bad medicine," that is to say, the cause of most baneful effects, which the Indians, on account of their simple nature and helplessness, cannot prevent. The white man's conduct toward his redskin neighbor has been only too often the product of heartless contempt, dishonesty, and inventive rapacity. Now, Charlot, though an Indian to the core, is endowed with a remarkably keen sense of what is just, fair, honest. Can anyone wonder at his dislike of the ways and manners of the whites? It is but natural, after all, just as it is natural for a horse to scent live bear in the dear skin, and shy at it, even when it has been made into a fancy lap-robe.

What above all scandalized Charlot and utterly disgusted him with the white man's civilization was the Garfield Treaty bearing the date of August 27, 1872.

Hon. James a Garfield was appointed by the Secretary of the Interior a Special Commissioner for the removal of the Flat Head Indians from the Bitter Root Valley. In this official capacity and accompanied by other functionaries, he went to the

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Indians, and after conferring with the chiefs and other leading men of the tribe drew up an agreement which provided for their removal to the Jocko Reservation.

The parties to the agreement were specified as follows: Articles of agreement, etc., between James A. Garfield, special commissioner, etc., of the fist part, and Charlot, fist chief, Arlee, second chief, and Adolf, third chief of the Flat Heads, of the second part, witnesseth: Whereas, etc., the chiefs or parties of the second part, were instructed to express their acceptance or non-acceptance of the proposed stipulations, by signing or declining to sign them.

While both Arlee and Adolf accepted and put their signatures to the agreement, Charlot refused to do so. Everyone in the assembly was an eye-witness of his refusal; his signature is not on the original on file in the Department of the Interior; neither did it appear on the duplicate left with the Indians. We have, besides General Garfield's one explicit attestation in his official report: "Arlee and Adolf, the second and third chiefs, signed the contract, but Charlot refused to sign," they are his words; we simply italicize them.

Such being the fact, would it not seem that Charlot, in all fairness and justice, should have been dropped and his name expunged for the contract? Yet, the instrument as published, as sent up to the Senate for approval, nay, as given by General Garfield himself in his report to the commissioner of Indian Affairs, make Charlot a party to the agreement, and shows, moreover, his supposed signature attached to it! Were it now a care of forgery? Who will say that it was not?

In extenuation it has been advanced that the treaty had for its object the real good of the Indians, and could not have been carried through otherwise, as the Senate would never have ratified it without the signature of Charlot, the head chief of the tribe. Furthermore, it was General Garfield's belief that Charlot would come round, change his mind and accept the treaty, as it had been accepted by Arlee and Adolf. That he so believed is manifest from a letter to A. J. Viall, Superintendent of Indian Affairs for Montana, bearing the same date as the treaty, and making part of his official report, in which he says:

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In carrying out the terms of the contract made with the chiefs of the Flat Heads, for removing that tribe to the Reservation (Jocko) I have concluded, after full consultation with you, to proceed with the belief that when he sees the work actually going forward he will conclude to come here with the other chiefs and keep the tribe unbroken.

But even so, did the supposed good of the Indians and the assumption of General Garfield that Charlot would change his mind, warrant the affixing of the latter's name tot he contract against his will? Believers in the modern, but iniquitous theories of accomplished facts and in the doctrine of expediency might admit it. but was the action fair, honorable, honest from the viewpoint of moral rectitude? Surely not, so long as the end does not justify the means, and so long as a man's will, even an Indian's cannot be mortgaged.

This proceeding was naturally viewed by Charlot and his people as a deliberate attempt to rob them of their homes by falsehood and fraud. The impression became conviction when the Indian Department, instead of tearing up and casting to the winds the fraudulent document, sought to enforce it, and thus broke up the tribe, ignored the rights of Charlot, as head and hereditary chief of the nation, and put him aside for Arlee.

The Indian Department at Washington seemed to be under the delusion that this arbitrary policy would finally induce Charlot and his people to move to the Jocko, leaving their present location where, hemmed in on all sides by whites, they were miserably poor and starving. But on a mind of Charlot's temper it had the very contrary effect; it only added to his exasperation and bitterness which, in turn, made him the more obstinate, and the more suspicious of the government, and all its agents.

Congress sought at least to remedy the wrong that had been done, and with this object in view in 1883, Senator G. G. Vest and the Hon. Martin Maginniss, Montana's Delegate, as a Senate Subcommittee, were sent to look into the grievances of those brave but unfortunate Indians.

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As appears from their report, Charlot showed himself so distrustful of those gentlemen as to tell him bluntly to their faces that "he had no confidence in their promises," and that "he would never go to the Jocko alive."

"We entered upon an interview," states the report, "which at times was very dramatic and even stormy." "Your Great Father Garfield," said Charlot, " put my name to a paper which I never signed. How can I believe you or any white man after the way I have been treated?" And here the members of the Subcommittee declare: "We are compelled to admit that there was much truth and justice in his statement. That his name was falsely published to the Garfield Treaty is unfortunately true was shown by the original." They further express themselves as follows: "Looking at all the circumstances, the removal of part of his tribe without his consent, ignoring his rights as head chief, and setting him aside for Arlee, and the publication of his name to an agreement which he refused to sign, we cannot blame him for distrust and resentment."

On the strength of the recommendations made to the Secretary of the Interior by the Subcommittee, Charlot was called to Washington, it being hoped that personal intercourse would lead to more satisfactory results. Generous offers were now made to him and his adherents, if they would only consent to move over to the Jocko. But nothing would shake Charlot's determination. To all the inducements set before him, his only answer was "that he had come to Washington to get the permission of the Great Father to allow him to remain unmolested in the bitter root Valley, the home of his father and the land of his ancestors. He asked no assistance from the Government; all he wanted was the poor privilege of remaining in the valley where he was born, and where the dust of his tribe who lived before him lay mingling with the earth. If any of his people desired to accept the bounty of the Government and move to the Jocko, they were at liberty to do so, and he would offer no objection. But it was his own individual personal wish to live and die in the Bitter Root Valley."

So he spoke, as we learn from Major P. Ronan, the U. s. Indian Agent, who conducted Charlot and his companions to

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Washington, and was present at the conference with the Secretary of the Interior, Hon. H. M. Teller.

Evidently Charlot's earnest pleading was not without effect, as the authorities now told him that he could have his wish. No better course could have been adopted by the administration, the concession being attended by the happiest results. If at once softened by bitter resentment that had been rankling in Charlot's heart, since his name had been fraudulently appended to the Garfield treaty. It revived his and his people's confidence in the sincerity and good will of the Government; and confidence once restored, it would not be long before he and his followers would consent to remove to the Jocko Valley, as the better alternative before them in the altered condition of things. So it came to pass; which goes to show that a timely yielding has persuasive charms and winning ways of its own, never to be found in high-handed, arbitrary measures.

We pass now to the Mission of St. Ignatius, the second Indian Mission founded in Montana.